Andrea Barna - Getting acquainted with the interest of the population of Krakow about the Jewish issues and their possibilities

Despite the dark past which surrounded Krakow during the Second World War, many Jewish people decided to stay in Krakow and try not only to accept the past, but show it to others, remind them of atrocity and make them learn from it, mainly with the help of their one-year-long festival, the Jewish Cultural Festival. As I am majored in communications I would like to do a research about their PR possibilities outside Krakow of attracting people to visit Krakow in order to get to know more about the dark past the Jews suffered. The research field I am most interested in is the media and PR possibilities that are the most helpful for this issue and the most usable to boost this kind of cultural tourism of Krakow. Krakow is definitely one of best places to help these ambitions as many Jews stay there preserving their culture; have an appealing architecture and gastronomy; and Auschwitz is also close enough. I firmly believe that with a stronger PR built upon this, the tourism of Krakow could boost soon, but only maximising the small, free possibilities could also achieve great results. I also would investigate the attitude of Krakow today in this issue in order to harmonize the interests and possibilities.
The most favourable possibility is the Jewish Cultural Festival. Searching other Jewish festivals on the Internet I could not find any advertisements about each other. Should we think that these are competitors? My answer is no, they need to help one another in order to reach the target groups. These festivals usually focus on different free time activities, so they really could advocate each other. Boskovice Festival in the Czech Republic; Klezmer Paris in France, Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany, Klezfest in England, Jewish Summer Festival in Hungary, Klezmer Festival in Lithuania and the different festivals in Poland (Krakow, Gdansk, Lódz, Bialystok, Chmielnik, Warsaw) all could help each other and collaborate. As far as I know there is not a central web site that provides information on these. To establish one could help all of them, and with the initiation Krakow could control it. Establishing one is a long process, so naturally it is not my intention in the two days I can spend in Krakow with my research.
The second types of possibility I would like to draw the attention to are the museums, synagogues, cemeteries, cultural places… that preserve the Jewish past and culture and so form the settings of the festivals. These places could find equal partners in other countries. To show an example I would like to mention the Jewish Summer Festival in Hungary that has five main settings: Dohány Street Synagogue, Rumbach Street Synagogue, Hungarian Jewish Museum, Symbol Budapest and the Uránia Movie Theatre. All of them could advertise synagogues, museums, cinemas that are the settings of the festivals in Krakow. This is again a huge project that is still not utilized.
In my view an elaborated PR project focusing each year on one country and the customs and memories of its population would draw the attention of the foreigners and make them feel that it is a vital issue they do not know enough about. It could really boost the cultural tourism of Krakow and could also draw the attention of the new generation to our diverse cultures and the past from which we always need to study.
In Krakow my research will focus on the people who live there for a long time. I would take interviews focusing on their needs. The projects I mentioned above can work only if the people support them and see what they can profit from them. Their feelings and attitudes can be the basic contribution or hindrance of any kind of PR activity. Based on complex interviews I would like to reach as many people and target groups as I can in those two days. It could show the facts how much the people advocate boosting cultural tourism based on Jewish history and culture in Krakow.
I think the connection of my research and ethnicity is obvious. I would focus on the everyday people. By asking them about their interest in this issue and their contribution and feelings about it, I could get to know a lot about their way of thinking of the past, different cultures, the Jewish culture, the memorials around them and their knowledge. A later aim can be the realisation of the PR projects I mentioned above, but I would use these two days to get acquainted with what the people want inside Krakow and what they make possible or just reject.